


the Thunder in the West

by WolfOfAnsbach



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/F, Gun Violence, Military, Moral Ambiguity, Romance, Slow Burn, War, World War II, a lot of historical characters, but not OUR World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfOfAnsbach/pseuds/WolfOfAnsbach
Summary: 1938. War brews between the Communist International and Great Britain's antibolshevist coalition.But that's far from the mind of Toni Topaz, humble farm girl who's just received a scholarship to study at Eugene V. Debs University in the city. Already overwhelmed by her new urban existence, Toni's life is further complicated and frustrated by fellow classmate Cheryl Blossom, a firebrand desperate to prove herself and expiate the sins of her family.Just when Toni's begun to think she might survive both the rigors of student life and her new nemesis, she finds herself and Cheryl rudely thrown together by the march of history.University is a trial, but a world war is worse.--Cheryl x Toni set in an alternate World War II
Relationships: Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz
Comments: 11
Kudos: 31





	1. 1938: autumn semester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to...this.
> 
> Yes, another fic about (or at least largely about) communism. I may not be the most original author on earth, but I suppose if we can withstand all the coffee shop and soulmate AUs one more bolshevik AU won't kill us. 
> 
> I've got an entire timeline worked out for this particular universe, beginning in 1894, when it diverges from our own universe. I may post it sometime later, but most of it probably won't even come directly into the story. 
> 
> For now, suffice it to say the US underwent a socialist revolution in 1919 alongside Russia, and the two countries are now united in the Communist International (Comintern). And the Comintern is locked in a sort of cold war with Great Britain, which has welded together an anti-communist coalition consisting of various European and extra-European states, but most significantly France, Germany, Italy, and Mexico. 
> 
> I am a neophyte when it comes to writing romance so we'll see how that goes. Actually this is in part an experiment to see if I can competently write romance at all. I'll do my best not to bore you with constant faux-historical digressions.

Toni took one last look at the farm. She would be back, sure. She would visit, no doubt about it. Often, if she could. But there was a sense of finality, still. A new chapter opened in the story of her life, if she was permitted to indulge in cliche. Things were changing. That was what the posters always said, the slogans on the wall, the pronouncements over the radios that now had pride of place on every American’s mantle or windowsill. 

_Things have changed for this country, for the world. Things are better._

And now, things would be better for her, too. Or at the very least, different. 

She loved the farm. She always would. But different was _different_. Different was good. Progress. 

Toni reached forward and embraced her grandfather one more time. The old man smiled, wizened cheeks dimpling and eyes crinkling. He brushed his granddaughter’s nose with a finger, affectionately. Toni smiled back and felt a lump build up in her throat. 

Fangs tossed one more bag into the back of the horse cart.

“I’ll see you soon, baby,” her grandfather insisted.

“Back for Christmas, for sure,” Toni assured him. 

One more hug.

She and her grandfather turned together. They looked down from the turnpike, following the slight dip of the hill, to the farm that had been the beginning and the end of Toni’s great, wide world until today. 

It was a cooperative, established in the wake of the war like so many others, in the service of both ideological initiative and the need to consolidate what arable farmland remained after the devastation of those dark years. Some fifty families worked the land here together, so it was really more of a small town. The little houses, built clean and strong of oak, sat side by side along narrow, evenly spaced dirt roads. Small, but new, sturdy, and sufficiently furnished—nothing like the wretched shack she’d spent her earliest years in. Toni took it all in. She got a good eyeful of the storehouse, which right now would be heaped to the ceiling with corn. The harvest was two months past. A slight grin bloomed and died on her lips as she recalled herself and a few friends being pulled out of there at six years old, and given a stern lecture on the dangers of playing in the corn silo. 

And then she picked her eyes up and looked out to the cornfields, bare for winter, but stretching far as the eye could see. She glanced back to Fangs and Sweet Pea, sitting impatiently atop the wagon, and for a moment they were all nine years old again, ready to lose themselves in the shivering maze of cornstalks and give everyone in town a hell of a headache until they were found. 

She rid herself of an errant tear.

“Daylight’s burning, you know,” Sweet Pea said. “Not to be rude.”

“Bye,” Toni said once more to her grandfather, voice husky and strained. And then she hopped onto the cart, beside the driver. The horse lashed to the wagon snorted and dipped its head. Sweet Pea reached forward and stroked its haunches. He cracked the whip, and the animal began its steady trot forwards.

Toni cast one more look over her shoulder as they trundled off down the road—one more glimpse of Blackstone Farm.

Soon, it disappeared behind the rise, and glare of the sun became too strong for further backward gazing. So she turned around and kept her eyes on the road. The rolling fields of the midwest flanked them on either side. The sky overhead was a nearly perfect cornflower blue, broken up only by the weakest, wispiest clouds. 

She would never completely become accustomed to the beauty. At least, it would always be home. And home was beautiful. 

So a few more tears were to be had.

“You’re not having uh—whaddyacallit—second thoughts, are you?” Sweet Pea asked. 

“No,” Toni said quickly. “Just—come on. Let me cry myself out.” 

Sweet Pea was silent for a moment, weighing his next words cautiously. Then he said: “you know how proud your dad would be of you. I mean—people like us don’t get to go to college. Or I guess we do now, but—you know what I mean. This is what he would have wanted for you, right?” When she didn’t say anything immediately he said: “well—you tell me.” 

Toni turned around, finding Fangs suspiciously silent. Naturally, he’d fallen asleep in the back of the wagon. Sweet Pea chuckled lightly.

“No,” she said. “You’re right.” 

“Wish my dumbass had the brains to get into university.” 

“You wouldn’t last a day in an air-conditioned classroom,” Toni said. “It’s for the best.” 

In the back seat, Fangs stirred. 

“Still,” he said, awake again. “Harvest time won’t be the same without you.”

She turned around and rolled her eyes. “I weigh 120 pounds soaking wet. I think you’ll manage bringing in the sheaves alright without me.”

“It’s not about _that_ ,” Sweet Pea said. “It’s a matter of morale.” 

Toni leaned back. “Right.”

The cart bumped and jostled on the uneven road beneath them. There was talk of paving, but the regional council in town would probably take some time to get around to it. Not to mention they’d need to request cement and steamrollers and whatnot from the district council’s planning board, and that would likely take a while to get approved, too. Anyway, Toni supposed there was a charm to a country dirt road. 

Sweet Pea cracked the whip, urging the tired old horse on a little faster. The ground beneath them began to rumble. Toni didn’t quite put two and two together at first. Her immediate thought was thunder, but not on a day like this. The the sky was so _blue_. Fangs was the first to turn around. His friends followed suit, and they caught the truck cresting the hill behind them. 

It rumbled along towards the poor little horse cart. As it neared, Toni recognized a military lorry, the bed packed full of smooth-cheeked boys in brand new uniforms. There was a recently built army base about ten miles north of here, and she guessed the truck’s origin was there. The lorry came alongside them and slowed for a bit. The fresh baked soldiers waved, smiling. One of them blew her a kiss. She relented and waved back. 

All volunteers, she knew. The new government was more than reluctant to reintroduce conscription—it was after all, endless overseas war that had brought down the _last_ regime, wasn’t it? Every schoolchild knew that.

The would-be soldiers looked a bit silly, some of them she would not have pegged for more than fifteen years old, if not for the uniforms. Green-tan, crinkling at their ankles and their shoulders, where the tunics or trousers were a little too big. One kid was fiddling with his red shoulder straps. There was an air of electric excitement about them all. Like they were off on an adventure. To Cuba, perhaps. Or the Bahamas. Fun in the sun, tropical beauties, with perhaps a thrilling gunfight to break the idyllic monotony. 

Her grandfather would have frowned at the levity. 

The truck pulled on ahead, and then roared off down the road.

“Poor bastards,” Sweet Pea said. 

“Well, they signed up for it,” Toni shrugged. 

“Yeah, but they don’t all have an eye like you,” Sweet Pea answered. 

“Oh,” Toni smiled. “You’re too kind.” 

“I’m serious,” he said. “I give credit where it’s due. If they gave you a solid rifle and shipped you off to Nassau I’d bet you could pick off half the British Army in a week.” 

“I’ve never shot anything that didn’t have horns, a tail, or feathers,” was her answer. “And I don’t really aim to.” 

Fangs chuckled in back. “Hah. _Aim_ too!” 

She turned around and smacked him on the shoulder. “Shut up.” 

Her father had been a soldier, and her grandfather, too. It was true that since the revolution the army sometimes took women. But she had no intentions of honoring _that_ particular family tradition. 

The sun reached its peak and began to recede again. 

It was half a day’s journey from the farm to Okemah. A tiny hamlet in the days before the war and revolution, it had ballooned into a respectable, bustling town of a few thousand ever since the guns fell silent. And even more recently, it was graced with its very own train station. That was the object of her journey. 

The wagon rattled through the recently paved streets of Okemah. Folks passed by on the street, farmers and laborers, like it had always been. A few fellows tipped their hats to the travelers. 

“I hear they don’t do that anymore in the big cities,” Fangs said. 

“What?” Toni asked. 

“Tip their hats. Or _wear_ hats, even. ‘Cause it’s bourgeois, you know.” 

“Well, I bet they’ll be doing it out here for a long time,” Toni said. A gut thrill went through her at the thought of those _big cities_. The one she was heading to right now, matter of fact. Haywood City. The capital of the republics. 

Another five minutes through Okemah, and they were at the train station. Her heart flipped again at the sight of the platform, the sparse but present crowd. Sweet Pea drew the cart to a stop. She massaged her dry throat.

“You okay?” Fangs asked.

“Mhmm. Just fine.” She didn’t move. Her fingers dug into the seat. 

“So...you gonna go?” Sweet Pea prodded.

Finally, she willed her leaden legs to move. She hopped out of the cart. She dragged her thick canvas bag from the back and snatched up her satchel. Her friends dismounted, Sweet Pea admonishing the horse to stay put. 

Tears welled in Toni’s eyes again. 

“You want us to wait ‘til the train comes?” Fangs asked, tenderly. 

“No—I just. It’ll make it harder.” She wiped her cheek. “Thanks, though.” 

Fangs nodded, and tried to hide the fact that there were a few tears glistening at the corners of his own eyes. Sweet Pea nudged him in the shoulder and grinned.

“Shut up,” Fangs hissed. 

Toni threw her arms around Fangs’ shoulders. He lifted her off of her feet and squeezed her tight. He held her for a mite too long, and then set her down again, each of their shoulders moist with the other’s quiet tears. Now it was Sweet Pea’s turn, and he very nearly crushed her to death, as he always did. 

“Farm girl in the big city,” he grinned. “Just like all those dumb books.” 

“Maybe not that dumb,” she said.

“You’ll do great. Remembe—they’re gonna run a telephone line out to the farm any day now. So you can call when you like.” 

“Yeah,” Toni vigorously nodded. “‘Course.” Then a pause, and she said what she rarely did. “Love you fellas.” 

“Love you too,” they chorused, almost at the same time. And they didn’t even bother to mock each other for it. 

After another long moment of simply exchanging glances, the boys reluctantly climbed back into the cart. Another moment. A wave. And then Sweet Pea cracked the whip again, and they were off, back in the direction they came. Toni watched them go for a while, proud neither of them turned around again. She watched until they disappeared into the setting sun. Then she finally turned herself and ambled up to the platform. 

She threw her stuff down onto a bench and tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. She didn’t want to draw any untoward attention to herself. The platform was not heavily populated. A few folks leaned against pillars or sat on the other benches. 

A red flag fluttered from the station’s roof. The breeze kicked up from the west, and the banner snapped cheerily in the wind. Toni gave it a mock salute. 

There were two People’s Guards reclining against a platform wall about fifty feet away. They wore revolvers, but their tunics were opened halfway to the chest, and they didn’t seem to be keeping much discipline. Likely, just farm boys who’d enlisted because they wanted an excuse to strut about packing pistols.

Toni leaned back onto the bench, and the breeze lulled her to sleep.

She awoke what might have been twenty minutes or an hour later, with the blare of a locomotive whistle. Toni bolted upright. She snatched up her bags, afraid she might somehow miss the train. 

A minute later, it snaked into the station, sleek and black and belching thick smoke. Her heart fluttered again. It was _exciting_. The rest of the passengers-to-be stood to attention. They began to board. She shifted her weight anxiously from foot to foot. She let a few get ahead of her, as she gathered up her own courage.

Finally, Toni stepped tentatively up to the waiting car. Transportation was free these days, but with rising tensions and resultant fear of foreign spies, a pass was temporarily required to board buses or trains. It wasn’t hard to get one--you just had to go down to your regional council and as soon as they’d determined you were a citizen of the Comintern they’d furnish you with the document. But still, it was a reminder that there was perhaps a storm cloud or two on the horizon.

The trainman smiled at her. He extended his hand. “Pass, comrade?” 

Toni blanched for a second. “Um—I—yes—I—yes, sir—yes, comrade.” Traditional forms of address were still current in the countryside. But in the city it seemed—just like hats—‘miss’ and ‘sir’ were quickly going the way of the dodo.

She reached into her satchel and produced the stiff little card. Stamped at the top by the Lincoln Regional Council, and signed by herself at the bottom. She presented it to the trainman. He gave it a quick once over, and then nodded for her to board.

Toni bounded into the compartment. She looked around. The car was quite full. Every row of benches had at least one person in it. So she’d have a traveling partner, like it or not. 

One thing that stuck out to her was that passengers of all races sat jumbled together, no determinable separation between them. She knew not so long ago it had not been that way.

Timidly, she stepped forward. Toni selected her seat--beside an older woman, maybe sixty. As she sat down next to her, Toni’s eyes fell unconsciously to the woman’s pale hands, nestled gently in her lap. Then to the tawny skin of her own hands. She looked up into the woman’s face. She smiled at Toni. Toni smiled back. 

Some years ago, she might not have gotten that much. But not now. Things were changing. 

Neither of them spoke until the train’s engine hissed to life, and they tore off down the tracks. Then the old woman asked: “is this your first time on a train, dear?” 

“I—yes,” Toni sputtered. “How’d you know?”

“You look nervous.” 

“Maybe a little.”

“Where are you off to? All alone, too.” She clucked her tongue, but it was in good humor rather than real disapproval. 

“I—I’m going to Haywood City.” 

“Chicago?”

“Yea—” Toni paused. She supposed a woman her companion’s age would be used to _that_ name. “Yeah, I guess it was called that back then.” 

“What’s your name, darling?” 

“T—Antoinette. Topaz.” 

“Pretty name.” The woman extended her hand, and Toni took it. “I’m Matilda.” 

“Hi, Comrade Matilda,” Toni said, trying to get into the habit.

“Oh, I don’t go in for all the ‘comrade’ hullabaloo,” Matilda said. “Too set in my ways, I suppose.” She chuckled to herself. “So what are you heading to Chicago for, Ms. Antoinette?” 

“Um—university,” Toni said, with a flash of pride. “Yeah, I got a scholarship. You know, they want farmers and workers, they said. And I applied and they took me."

Matilda’s eyebrows popped up. 

“Really?” The train whirled on through the dark countryside. "What'll you be studying, then?"

" Economics," Toni said, quickly. "And photography.” 

Matilda nodded. 

“We need young folks with a bit of brains. God knows we still haven’t made good what we lost in the war,” she turned to the window for a moment, wistful. Toni decided not to ask. 

_‘God knows’,_ is what she'd said. Another indicator the woman was on the older side. 

They fell silent for another while. Matilda produced a newspaper about an hour into the train journey. The day’s edition of _Industrial Worker_ . They got _that_ one even on the farm. 

The headline trumpeted: **ENGLISH NAVY SHELLS NASSAU, NATIONAL FORCES RESIST** — **ISLANDS AT RISK OF CAPTURE.**

Matilda caught her staring and asked: “what do you think, dear? Will the English retake the Bahamas?” 

“I--” Toni laughed nervously. “I couldn’t tell you. Not an expert on that stuff.” She paused. “I hope not.” 

Toni turned. She did not really want to think about war right now. She leaned back in her seat. Soon, she managed to doze off again. It had been a long day.

The trip took the better part of twenty four hours. Matilda detrained in Missouri, wishing Toni good luck at college. Toni gladly accepted the well wishes. 

A few miles into Missouri, they passed by something special. Passengers rose from their seats for a better look. They pressed their faces flat against the glass and squinted. Toni didn’t need to. She was positioned fine here at the window. 

It was a town--a little town on the route to St. Louis. Or it _had_ been a town. It was called Pacific, back in the day, on account of its positioning on the railways to the west coast. Not worth noting on a map. The great irony was, now that Pacific was a heap of rubble, everyone in America (and in the other lands of the Comintern) knew its name.

The train slowed as they chugged by. Toni took in the sight of the ravaged little village. It was a fastidiously kept ruin. Vines were periodically cleaned away, shattered walls and gouged out trenches swept clear of dust. So that visitors for decades or centuries to come would be able to see the desolation of Pacific, the bullet-scarred houses hollowed out by fire, the old town hall, caved in by artillery, the ugly trenches winding around half the town like crude half moons. So that the people would see, and remember. 

Over what had once been the entrance to the town, now thronged by tourists, stood a freshly erected signpost: **HERE, OUR CAUSE WAS SAVED.**

The Battle of Pacific. 

School children in all the republics of the Comintern wrote ‘we won the Battle of Pacific’ to practice their penmanship. In a society that now disclaimed gods, it was as near as one got to a place of pilgrimage. And the men who had died defending it were martyrs. 

Toni was not really given to ideological or patriotic sentimentalism. She liked to think of herself as a practical and level-headed person. But the sight of the ruined town, victim of that cruel war, wrenched at her chest. She thought of her father. His face was fading. She was four years old the last time she saw him. He gave her a kiss on the forehead, and then he was marching off and he was gone forever. Yes, his face was fading. As the years went by, the less and less she could remember the twist of his cracked lips or his almond-brown eyes too soft for a man his size. 

He had not died at Pacific. But he had died somewhere, out there, in the name of the same cause as those who _had_ fallen here. 

No, Toni was not a slave to ideological passions. But she could be, like most people, a captive of her past. And she saw for the briefest flashing moment her father's face, clear again, in every creased feature and heavy look. And he'd told her that he was going to fight to make a better world for her to grow up in. And then he was gone, leaving her to clutch that promise like the wind. 

But she was on her way to _university_ now. Could her father at her age, bent in the fields, have even dreamt of such a thing? Much less her _grandfather_? So perhaps he _had_ made a better world, if only that much better. 

And she whispered, very dearly under her breath: “thank you.” 

They crossed the Mississippi, and she marveled that she’d never seen so much water. The width of the river seemed _impossible_. She watched it, enraptured, until the serpentine curl of the ancient waterway disappeared behind a bend. 

New passengers boarded and got off. She dozed on and off. 

By the time the train arrived in Haywood, it was dark again. But Toni hardly even noticed, because she was absolutely awestruck by the city before her. She had never imagined men could build something so magnificent. 

The buildings towered like great black monoliths, ringed with sparkling windows, glowing in the falling dusk. The spires really did seem to scrape the sky. Toni had always thought that was just an expression. Wires raced from roof to roof, from street to street. And _people_. More people than she had ever seen filling those streets. Women, men, children. A hundred hues of skin, tall, short, fat, slender. Chatter like she’d never heard it, overwhelming. Her jaw actually dropped.

Her first instinct was to turn tail and flee. Back to the safety of the farm. 

But Toni set her jaw. She was here. Haywood City. 

And she had a purpose. 

So Toni descended from the train and advanced into her future. 

_The_ future. 

Toni’s first sighting of Eugene v. Debs International University (or the University of Chicago, before the revolution) was nearly as impressive as her first sighting of the city. It was a beautiful campus, built decades before the war. Elements of the classical fused with crenellated baroque towers, jutting against modernist slabs of glass and steel, counterposed with tree-laden promenades and gardens. 

She imagined checking in with the Commissar for Student Affairs would be nerve-wracking, but said commissar turned out to be a cheerful young woman who merrily greeted her and then handed over her room key.

Toni stood before the door of her second story dormitory for a long time, simply staring at the polished wood. The key trembled in her hand. The teeth dug into the flesh of her palm. Finally, she willed herself to unlock it.

But before she could, the door flew open of its own accord. And there stood her roommate.

Toni kind of gawked.

She was very blonde, very pretty, with the kind of lovely face that made Toni trust her instantly, for better or worse. She almost felt like she should be annoyed at the chipper, can-do attitude this girl radiated without even opening her mouth, but she couldn’t bring herself to be.

“Oh!” Blondie exclaimed. “Hi! Y—you must be my roommate.” She extended her hand. “Um—Elizabeth Cooper. Betty. Everyone calls me Betty.”

Toni took her hand gently.

“Antoinette. But—everyone calls me Toni.” 

“Well, Hi, Toni. Welcome to...here. I’m new, too, obviously. But I guess you’re a little newer. By a matter of days. Come on in!”

She stepped inside, feeling better already. The room was small but cozy. There were two beds, one on either side, with a window between them offering a fair view of the garden-girded concourse below. A little radio sat on a small wooden table. On the wall, above their beds, hung three portraits: Marx, Lenin, and Haywood.

“Are they uh...are the fathers of the Revolution going to be staring at us the whole time?” Toni asked. Lenin’s eyes seemed to follow her with every step she took.

“Um...about those. I’ve been meaning to take them down, honestly,” Betty said. “I’m just afraid to upset the administration. You know how they are.”

“Right,” Toni answered distantly, too busy making heated eye-contact with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Betty flopped back onto her bed.

“So what are you studying?”

“Economics,” Toni answered quickly. She throws down her bag. “And photography. I had a camera back on the farm but—”

“You’re from a farm?” Betty asked. For a moment Toni wondered if it was a mocking question, but there was not a hint of insincerity in it.

“Yeah. Oklahoma. Well—the Council Republic of the Plains but...we mostly still call it Oklahoma.”

Betty giggled.

“Certainly not quite as big a mouthful.”

“Everything’s a mouthful, these days,” Toni sighed and sank onto her own bed, absolutely _exhausted_. “God, I need to sleep for a day or three.”

“When’s your first class?” Betty asked.

“Don’t care,” Toni moaned.

* * *

As it turned out, her first class wasn’t as nerve-wracking as she’d expected, either. Mostly because Betty took it with her. She had to, anyways. ‘History of the Communist International’ was mandatory for all first year students at Debs. 

The professor was a gentleman on one side or the other of forty. He had got an ugly scar dug into his cheek, and a milky white eye. The Order of the Red Banner pinned to his lapel confirmed Toni’s assumption he was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. He strutted up to the lectern in a pair of bloused trousers, boots, and a simple jacket. Suits and other such bourgeois affectations were frowned upon in the cities, though not outright prohibited.

“Welcome, one and all,” he said, gravelly. 

Toni fidgeted in her seat. 

Betty already had an open notebook in front of her, and the tip of her pencil resting lightly against the page. Toni couldn’t help but smile.

“Now—to give you a brief overview of the course. It will consist in the main of lecturing and I will expect you to be present in the hall at the beginning and end of each lecture, barring illness or death. We will begin with a brief overview of the first and second internationals—then we will commence a study of ‘94, and I will take us up to the present day from there…”

He finished his introductory lecture. By the end, Toni wasn’t so nervous. It seemed okay enough. The rest of the day’s classes were hardly any worse. Her first economics course seemed accessible enough. So did Calculus and ‘Leninism in Theory and Practice’ (another mandatory class). 

By the end of her first day at university, she felt quite confident, as a matter of fact. She decided to get a meal off campus. So Toni snatched up her satchel--which she’d made herself years ago out of leather she’d taken and tanned herself—and headed into the park adjacent to campus, and from there into the city.

Halfway across the park, beneath the shade of an oak tree thicket, she noticed something. Namely, a girl. On a bench. Crying.

The girl was a redhead, but that was about all Toni could tell, because she had her face buried in her hands. And because she was wearing a dark leather overcoat that hung down past her knees, and a pair of tightly strapped soldier’s boots. Toni’s heart clenched a bit. She was dressed, indeed, like a commissar of the Excom. Sure, legally the excomists could no longer haul you off without reasonable suspicion, nor ransack your house without a writ from the local soviet, but these protections often failed to translate from legislation to reality. 

And Toni did not want to get tangled up with the internal police, one way or another.

However, she moved a little closer still, and noticed no red stars or bands or piping on the girl’s coat. It was just a plain, leather coat. Presumably privately acquired. So perhaps she was _not_ Excom after all. She just, for whatever reason, liked to dress as if she was. And she was crying quite hard. And call her soft hearted, or a busybody, but Toni felt compelled to do or say _something_.

She moved tentatively closer still. 

“Uh—hello?” 

The girl swallowed her latest sob. She slowly took her hands from her face and looked up. Toni swallowed a little gasp of her own, but that was only because this mystery redhead was so beautiful, even puffy-faced and soaked in tears. Eyes big and deep, occupying that liminal space between light and dark. Lips full and trembling. _Very_ fair skin--almost a pallor. 

But that pretty face twisted immediately into a derisive scowl.

“What?”

“I just—” Toni’s resolve flickered. “Are you _okay_?”

“What the hell is it to you?” sneered the mystery girl. Toni was taken aback. Fine. If that was how she wanted to be.

“Alright. I guess I’d wish you a good afternoon, but I don’t know how you’d take it.” 

The girl stood. She had a few inches on Toni. Her sneer grew meaner. She looked Toni up and down. Mostly down. She took note of her satchel, crammed full of books.

“Just go back to class, _little girl_.” 

Toni gave a sneer of her own. And then she turned and stomped off. 

A simple ‘I’d prefer to be alone’ would have sufficed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No update schedule, have a bit written ahead but not quite sure where I'm going to take this as a whole or how long it'll be. 
> 
> Comintern=Communist International, the international state that governs both Soviet Russia and America
> 
> Excom=Executive Commissariat for Revolutionary Defense and the Destruction of Counterrevolution, the security forces of the Comintern


	2. 1938: ambition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Red Army abolished traditional ranks for their being 'bourgeois'. These were replaced with 'positional ranks'. Here they are, along with their rough equivalents in conventional militaries. More relevant later, but they're first introduced in this chapter. 
> 
> Red Army man=private soldier 
> 
> commander=corporal 
> 
> secom/section commander=sergeant 
> 
> platcom/platoon commander=lieutenant
> 
> comcommand/company commander=captain (because 'comcom' sounds stupid) 
> 
> batcom/battalion commander=major
> 
> recom/regimental Commander= lieutenant colonel 
> 
> bricom/brigade commander=colonel 
> 
> divcom/divisional commander=major general
> 
> corcom/corps commander=lieutenant general
> 
> arcom/army commander=general
> 
> marshal=marshal

“Bu—”

“I’m sorry, Comrade Blossom.” 

Cheryl had suppressed emotion before. All too often. But right now, she felt like she was trying to stifle a bundle of dynamite in her chest. She tried to take a breath, and it came out more of a strangled squeak. 

“I’ve achieved perfect scoring in every exam. I’ve met every benchmark. _Exceeded_ —”

Commissar Weatherbee nodded.

“I’m not saying you haven’t. You have. But you must understand—”

“Understand _what_? Comrade Commander, _please_!”

Weatherbee raised a hand for silence. Cheryl literally bit her tongue until the pain became too much. 

“I do not doubt your commitment. But that means you must _understand_ what we are doing here.”

“Here? I—”

“I don’t just mean ‘here’, as in, this office, or the Excom, or even in the Party. I mean _here_ as in the _Communist International_ and the American republics thereof in particular. We are building a state of the workers, the toiling people. You know this better than anyone. You understand, then, that the Party and the security forces of the proletarian state must give priority to recruits who hail _from_ the toiling classes.” 

Cheryl tried to rein in tears and failed. They trickled down her cheeks unstopped, and she tasted salt. She _hated_ the taste. It was pathetic. Miserable. Like her. 

“Comrade Commander,” she begged. “I am _not_ my mother, nor am I my father. I _spit_ on their names. I am _no traitor_ , not to the workers, not to the International. I _swear_ it.” 

It was policy that the ‘former oppressors’ of the toppled old regime and their children—bourgeois, landlords, industrialists, policemen—were to be heavily, thoroughly scrutinized (if not barred entirely) before being trusted with any position of confidence in the machinery of the revolutionary state. It was policy, but it wasn’t _fair_. It wasn’t _Cheryl’s_ fault she’d been born to wealth and privilege. It wasn’t _fair._ It wasn’t _fair_ that she should be kept back by the dead hands of her parents. She could hardly _remember_ her parents.

“I know you are not a traitor, Comrade,” said Weatherbee. “But, nevertheless. Most of all in a time like this, we must be _sure_. We cannot risk anything. Not now.” He coughed and folded his hands atop his desk. “I’m sorry, Comrade Blossom, but you will be granted no position in the Extraordinary Commissariat, nor are you admitted into the Communist Party.” 

Cheryl stood for a few moments, tears pouring down her face. Her cheeks felt so hot that her whole head might catch fire. She blinked a few times, hard. Finally, she oriented herself enough that she could turn and storm from the office. 

Cheryl made it to the park before she collapsed onto a bench and wept.

* * *

Mary Andrews cut the sausage into two pieces of perfectly equal length. Then she bisected each of those. Then each of those. And so on and so on until she had a chopping board full of little sausage slices. Basic rations were distributed free of charge, now—your bread, water rice, bit of beef—but if you wanted to cook up something half-decent you still had to pay for the ingredients. And Mary had never settled for half-decent. 

“Archie, seriously—knock it off.”

“Come _on_ , Jug. Just let me hold it for a second.”

“It’s not a _toy_ , Archie!”

Mary turned around to confront her son and his best friend—or her two sons, as she’d long since thought of them.

Archie and Jughead sat across from each other at the dinner table, Archie feebly reaching towards the pistol holstered at his friend’s hip. 

“Jughead, for God’s sake,” Mary barked. “Go put that thing away.” Jughead sighed, his shoulders deflating beneath the drab onyx-colored military jacket. He tugged at the red shoulder straps. It was a nervous habit. Mary’s heart still sank every time she saw him in that damn uniform. But the boy wouldn’t be dissuaded from enlisting. He wanted to be like his father. His _dead_ father. She just prayed to God he would _outlive_ him, and she would not see his name carved on a stone monument some day. 

Jughead got up, dashed into the other room, and returned a moment later, sans revolver. Archie looked disappointed. Fortunately, _that_ boy had no military aspirations. But, like most lads his age, he found firearms endlessly thrilling. 

She poured the sliced sausage into the pot. Archie sniffed at the air. “Smells good.”

“It’d better,” Mary said. 

Then the door swung open and slammed shut with the same terrible force.

“Oh, boy,” Jughead muttered, resting his chin on the table. 

Cheryl stormed into the house, and brought with her the same sharp, frightening energy she carried everywhere. Mary looked up from the counter again. She was, she’d learned, one of the only people capable of blunting that girl’s rages. It was quite a responsibility. Archie got up and slunk away to his room. Jughead remained seated, leaned back in his chair, and said: “hey, Cheryl.” 

“Hi, Cheryl,” Mary echoed, and smiled, hoping to defuse her stormy emotional state right out of the gate. 

Cheryl’s face was stuck in a firm pout. Her eyes narrowed in that squinty way that showed she was trying to force back tears, and that the next word anyone spoke to her would probably result in an explosion. Jughead took the cue, got up, and followed Archie. He did not want to be here when her mood plummeted even further. 

Cheryl came and sat in Jughead’s empty seat. 

“Take the damn coat off, sweetheart” Mary pleaded. Cheryl did not remove her stuffy leather coat. Instead she tightened the belt in defiance and rested her head on the table. “Are you okay?” Mary asked, knowing full well the answer.

“Yes,” Cheryl lied. Her hoarse voice made it clear she’d been crying, and that if she tried to talk any more, she’d probably burst into tears again. 

Mary closed her eyes for a moment. Then she switched off the fire under the pot, put down the carving knife, and joined her daughter at the table. She laid a maternal hand on Cheryl’s shoulder. The girl stiffened.

“No, you aren’t,” Mary said. “Come on. What happened?” she asked. But she already had a pretty good idea.

“Nothing!” Cheryl snapped, burying her face in her arms. 

“Let’s just cut the nonsense, Cheryl,” Mary pushed. “Just tell me what happened.” 

Cheryl thumped her head against the table once, then twice. Then she began to sniffle. Then she growled in frustration and impotence.

“They didn’t _fucking_ take me!” 

“Language, for God's sake,” Mary said, gently. Then: “you mean the Party rejected your application? Again?”

“ _No_!” Cheryl sniffled.

Mary turned away and mouthed ‘thank God’ silently to herself. She hated to see her so distraught, but she also wished desperately Cheryl wanted to be an engineer, or an actress, or a writer, or wanted _anything_ other than to join the Communist Party and goddamned political police. One of her children in the army was enough. 

“Cheryl, darling,” Mary rubbed her back softly, like she’d always done, since she’d first taken her in all those years ago. It had ceased to be a magic bullet, an instant calming salve, as it had been when Cheryl was a little girl. But it still helped. Her muscles visibly relaxed. “You know this really isn’t the end of the world. You’re a bright girl. They’ll take you next time.” Mary sincerely hoped they did not. “Or if not, you’ll find something e—”

“I don’t _want_ something else,” Cheryl pouted. “I _hate_ this country!” 

That was a brazen falsehood.

Cheryl wept and sniffled for a while longer, occasionally pounding on the table in rage. Mary let her cry herself out. She’d learned that was the best way to deal with these episodes. Too hands-on of an approach only made things worse. 

At last, Cheryl stood, face bone-white, eyes ragged and red, and announced she was going to her room. Mary nodded and watched her go. The tail of the coat trailed, and finally it too disappeared into the hallway. 

Mary reignited the fire under the boiling pot and resumed making her red beans and rice. Children were supposed to get easier as they approached adulthood. The opposite seemed to be true with hers. 

She had taken Jughead in because it was the right thing to do. She had never questioned the choice even once. The least she owed her slain husband’s equally slain friend was to ensure his son never went without a family or a meal. She could not have let him join the legions of war orphans, adrift and alone, dependent on the inconsistent largesse of an overburdened, shambling state. 

And she’d been lauded for it, though of course, that had nothing to do with her decision. They had showered praises on her for taking in the son of a fallen war hero. A hero of _Pacific_ , no less. The government granted her an appreciable monthly stipend that made their lives that much easier. 

Cheryl had been a different matter. Her parents had not been revolutionary heroes. They had not even been ordinary workers or farmers, which would have been just fine. Rather, they were the _enemy_. The wealthy, the capitalists. 

Cheryl might not _be_ her parents, but she would carry forever the stigma of the pre-revolutionary order. She was born of the exploiting and ruling classes. And if Mary took her in, she would bear that mark as well. 

But when she’d looked into the poor little girl’s angelic face framed by that wild red hair, decorated with those woeful, big dark eyes, she could not have done otherwise. Cheryl had been so lonely and desperate. Still calling, asking for her dead brother. And she reminded her so much of _herself_. Mary’s heart had broken, and she’d known she could not leave her alone. 

“Are you certain you wish to take on this...burden, Comrade Andrews?” the scowling official had asked as he signed Cheryl over into Mary's care. Mary still remembered the way the man’s breath smelled like whiskey. He’d had only one eye. That had been hardly a year after the war.

There would be no stipend for Cheryl. No aid from the state, no commendations. If Mary took on this one, the girl would be her cross to bear.

So, she shouldered the cross. It had not been the easiest of journeys. In the beginning, Cheryl was indignant. Even at five she was spiteful and bitter that she’d been ripped from her life of ease and privilege and handed down to live with the common folk. She demanded servants, and specially prepared dishes, and seemed incensed the name ‘Blossom’ did not immediately induce genuflection and worship from all she encountered. 

But time went on, she attended the state schools with everyone else, and she drank in the same ideological instruction, and her attitudes saw a sharp inversion. Suddenly her fanaticism was refined and redirected, and she was the fiercest partisan of the new socialist order one could find anywhere. So eager was she to prove her devotion that she now wanted nothing more than a position in the Excom and in the Party. 

And so here they were.

Mary closed her eyes and said a short prayer for all her children. Especially the two troublesome ones she had not birthed herself. 

You were not really supposed to pray any more. God was a backwards delusion, said the radio and the news reels and the papers. But Mary figured it could not hurt. And anyways, this government would not tell her what to do any more than the old one had. 

* * *

“I’ll be your sherpa in the concrete jungle,” Betty had said, and she was doing a fine job of it. 

Day by day, Betty peeled away layer after layer of Haywood City’s imposing grandeur and sprawling enormity, and Toni felt a little more at home. 

Betty introduced her to Kevin Keller, who she described as her best friend at Debs. He was a handsome young man, studying literature and the classics, mostly friendly, if given to a sharp word or two. They’d decamp together to the library and study for hours in the interest of their respective exams and assignments. Or they’d eat lunch together on the concourse or visit the cinema a few streets from campus (Toni had never seen a motion picture before—the first time was a bit jarring). 

“How do...I work this thing?” Toni asked one morning, face darkening with embarrassment, as she faced down an elevator for the first time in her life.

Betty laughed heartily, but there was no shade of mockery in the laugh. She took Toni’s hand and led her inside. She slid the screen shut behind them. Then she punched in their desired floor and laughed again when Toni yelped upon the elevator’s jolting ascent. 

“Welcome to the twentieth century, Toni,” Betty said, smiling. 

“An adjustment,” Toni said, compensating for her discomfort by fiddling with the hem of her shirt. 

A little over a month into their first semester, Betty and Kevin took Toni out to dinner. Betty had long intended to introduce them to her beau and said he would meet them there. 

Kevin and Betty (Toni deferred to their expertise) decided on an Italian restaurant not far from campus. The quality of the food was high enough that before the revolution had come, only those of means could have afforded to dine in. But the revolution _had_ come. 

Toni picked a seat at the window, and they settled into the booth. 

“So,” Kevin said, nibbling a bread stick. “Growing up on a farm. You do a lot of hard labor?” He teasingly flexed his muscles and smiled. 

“My fair share,” Toni shrugged. “I mean, it’s a _collective_ farm, you know. Emphasis on the _‘collective’_. Had to do _something_.” 

“My father’s a mechanic. So, I know some of that stuff, as far as manual work goes,” Betty said. “But I guess that’s a whole other thing. Did you folks have tractors on the farm?” 

“Yeah,” Toni said. “Not when I was really little, but about three or four years after the war, the regional council sent us some. Made things a lot easier.” 

Time came to order. Toni perused the menu, not recognizing a single one of the dishes on offer.

“Oh—you’ve never had Italian before, have you?” Betty asked, sweetly.

“Uh...no,” Toni admitted. 

“That’s fine. Just...pick a plate and I’ll tell you what’s in it.” 

Toni’s finger hovered over the menu, and finally came down on a dish at random.

“Chicken parmesan?” she asked.

“It’s like chicken with pasta on top, and this sauce, and cheese. It’s pretty good.”

“Uh…okay,” Toni shrugged. “I guess I’ll try that.” 

“You’re just gonna order the first thing you see on the menu?” Kevin asked.

“Hey,” Betty smiled and put an arm around Toni’s shoulder. “It’s her first time. Give her a break.” 

The waitress came by again. Waitresses dressed simply, now. Not so obsequiously, not in a servile fashion, as they had in the old days. Betty ordered lasagna, and Kevin spaghetti with meatballs. Toni ordered her chicken parmesan.

When it was brought out, she picked at it for a while, before finally convincing herself to take a bite. It was good. _Quite_ good, actually. Different from the hearty, simple foods she’d grown up eating on the farm. Somehow hollower, not as heavy, yet more instantly gratifying. 

“Good,” she admitted.

“I guess you’re not used to eating meat you didn’t kill yourself, right?” Kevin joked. 

“She was a _farmer_ ,” Betty said. “Not a hunter-gatherer.”

“Actually,” Toni said, mouth full of chicken. “Well…coyotes are a problem. And sometimes we wanted to eat jackrabbit or steer, so…” she shrugged again. 

Before the conversation could continue, the restaurant doors rang open again. Someone stepped inside. Toni did not turn around and did not figure the new arrival had anything to do with them until he was standing right at their table. She looked up.

Betty beamed at the young man, who wore the uniform of a Red Army secom. He was slightly built, light blue eyes fired with a youthful electricity. Dark hair tumbled over his brow and cheeks in pretty waves. He leaned over and gave Betty a quick kiss on the cheek, just brushing the corner of her lips.

“Hey, Betts,” he said.

“Hey, yourself,” she replied.

“Hey, Kevin,” he said. Kevin returned the greeting. Then Betty’s boyfriend got around to Toni, extended his hand, and shook hers. “Hey. Jughead Jones.” 

She didn’t mean to sound rude, and didn’t even mean to say it at all, but it simply fell out. “Your name’s Jughead?” Toni immediately corrected herself and said: “I’m sorry, it’s not m—”

“It’s fine,” Jughead said. “Forsythe Jones. The III. But...that sounds a bit…”

“It’s fine,” Toni said. “I understand. I have plenty of friends back home with stupid names, you know. It’s all good.” 

Jughead took his seat beside Betty. “Where’s home? Betty tells me you’re a country girl,” He put an arm over his girlfriend’s shoulder, and she leaned into his embrace. 

“Yeah. If you like,” Toni said. 

“Me too,” he cracked a smile. Everyone laughed. “I mean—not the girl part, obviously. But I grew up in the country. Me and my brother. We were from this little town in Ohio, called uh…” Then his voice trailed off, as if he didn’t want to speak his hometown’s name. “City’s a little rough at first but...you acclimate, eventually.” 

“Good to know,” Toni said. “How long have you been here?”

“Oh, a while,” he said. “We came pretty much right after the war. My brother—I mean, he’s not my _biological_ brother. His mother took me in after my mom and dad—you know. And we came here. His mom was looking for work. There wasn’t much left of our hometown, anyways.” Jughead shrugged. Betty squeezed his arm.

“Sorry,” Toni said. “My dad died on the front. I get it.” 

“Sorry to hear that,” he said. There was an awkward quiet, as all realized such gruesome topics had been raised far too quickly. He had only just sat down. Jughead quickly took the initiative and steered them towards less grievous matters. “So…Toni, what’re you at school for?”

“Um…economics,” she said. “It’s not that I’m especially eager to be an economist or anything. I just had to pick something for the admissions program to help me out, you know.”

Jughead nodded.

“Hey,” Kevin said. “If there’s anything this country could use more of, it’s economists.”

“Knock it off, Kev,” Betty said.

“It wasn’t a joke!” he defended. “It took me a week to find a store still stocking fresh milk.”

“That’s because PlanCom’s been sending it all to us,” Jughead said. “Yeah. Sorry. Military takes priority right now for most goods. What with the British turning us out of the Bahamas and all that. High alert.” Then he turned back to Toni: “speaking of PlanCom, if you don’t wanna work for them…what _do_ you wanna do?”

Toni shrugged. “I’m not really sure, actually. I always liked taking pictures. Photography, I mean. If I could get a position doing that, that’d be great.” She smiled at a flashing memory. “ _Industrial Worker_ was the only paper we’d get at the farm. So I always used to cut out the pictures and paste them up in my room, and pretend I’d taken them myself.” 

“Aww,” Betty said. Then sobered up. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be patronizing.”

“It’s fine,” Toni waved her down. “That’s ideal, but, you know.”

“I’m sure you could find an opening at a paper, somewhere,” Jughead said. “There’s one here in the city, I always forget what it’s called, but it’s pretty much all landscape photographs. Wilderness. That kind of thing.”

Toni relaxed. She felt good. She liked this—this casual, meaningless talk. It was comfortable. Safe. She was finally beginning to really feel at home.

“That sounds nice,” she said.

“Anyway,” Jughead continued. “It’s nice to meet someone without some wild, overweening ambition,” he nudged Betty. “Between this one and my sister.” Betty nudged him back. He smiled, satisfied he’d annoyed her.

Betty was an engineering major, and talented on that front, but of course Toni knew nothing of Jughead’s sister.

“What’s your sister looking to do?” she asked.

“Phew,” Jughead chuckled. “What _isn’t_ she looking to do? Well first of all, she wants to join the Party. _Desperately_. But that’s mostly because she _also_ wants to enroll in the Excom. She’s bad enough now. If they gave her the authority to _arrest people_?” he shuddered for comic effect.

Toni thought of the pretty redhead from the park, dressed like an Excom commissioner. She smiled.

“She’s…a character,” Betty said, and shrugged.

“Oh, you are _missing out_ if you haven’t met her,” Kevin guffawed.

“The way she’s missing out on smallpox or the plague, sure,” Jughead said.

“She can’t be _that_ bad,” Toni said.

“She’s _not_ ,” Betty confirmed. “They’re exaggerating.”

“Barely,” Jughead qualified.

“Well, how about you?” Toni asked. She felt a need—if a playful one—to defend this mystery girl and her overweening ambition. “You don’t think _you’re_ ambitious?” She pointed to the rank insignia on his shoulder. “Look at you! Already a secom.”

Jughead touched the red star on his shoulder and smiled. “Hey, I’m just a humble servant of the people. Now if they wanted to make me divcom or, God forbid, a Marshal, I wouldn’t _complain_ …” he shrugged. Everyone laughed. Jughead pointed at Toni with his fork. “You said your father was in the war, right?”

“Yeah,” Toni smiled, weak. She knew he was only trying to make conversation. Meant walk. Talking about her father always triggered an odd sensation in her breast. It wasn’t exactly pain, but it was unsure and nebulous and not really welcome.

“On our side?” Jughead asked. He tried for it to come out playful, but his tone fell a little, almost becoming interrogatory. Betty kicked him under the table. She tried to do it subtly, but Toni noticed.

Toni eyed the red star on Jughead’s shoulder, and the red hash mark above his elbow, denoting rank.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Don’t worry,” she smirked. “He sure as hell didn’t fight and die with the _Whites_.”

She paused a moment and watched the visible relief cross Jughead’s face. 

"What was his outfit?" Jughead asked. 

“37th Division, Workers’ and Farmers’ Red Army.”

Jughead nodded. “Right.” Then something came over his face. “Hey!” he said. “37th Division! When…when General Boyd attacked Charleston, the 37th were the ones who lifted the siege, weren’t they?”

“That’s right,” Toni said. She couldn’t help a burst of pride on behalf of her father. “’Bloody 37th’,” she offered the unit nickname. “He died at San Francisco.” She felt the hot, prickling feeling at the corner of her eyes.

"San Francisco. Yeah. That was a hard one. I wasn't there, obviously, but..." Jughead smiled sympathetically at her. “My dad was in the Red Cavalry,” he said. “Just like me. Except I’m not half the trooper he was, obviously.”

A moment of ghostly silence fell all around them. Betty coughed lightly into the crook of her elbow. 

Finally, Betty raised a glass of water. “Well,” she said. “To your dad, Juggie.” Then she nodded at Toni. “And yours.”

They took their sips.

“Well,” Kevin finally spoke. “How about something a bit less grim?”

“I concur,” Betty said.

“Sure,” Jughead said.

“Sure,” Toni agreed.

* * *

Toni was alone in the university library when the radio nestled into the corner blazed to life again. 

_“—despite the recapture of Nassau by the British reactionaries, the noble Bahamian people continue their struggle against imperialist slavery, with the fraternal aid of the Communist International and its gallant Red Army.”_

For some years now, the Comintern and the Red Army had been in the business of lending aid to anti-colonial rebels throughout the great overseas empires of the European states, particularly the British holdings in India, Africa, and the Caribbean. The struggle in the Bahamas figured with special prominence in government propaganda as of late. But now it seemed the tide was turning in favor of the British.

Most of the students turned an ear to the broadcast for a moment, and then returned to their studies or hushed conversations.

But Toni heard a heavy thump and realized someone had crashed a fist down onto a table. And that same someone—a woman, by the sound of it—hissed: “bastard English!” 

Toni turned to find the one who had spoken. And to her shock, she recognized her. It was the pretty redhead from the park bench—the one who had cut such an odd figure, weeping with abandon while dressed as an excomist. And she was still wearing the damn leather coat and boots. And evidently roused to great anger by the broadcast. 

If circumstances were different, Toni might’ve thought this girl looked a bit endearing in such a state, lip curled back over her teeth, eyes narrowed in range. This seemed to be a rather hot-tempered young woman. Two times Toni had chanced upon her, now, and each time she’d been furious about _something_ or the other.

Then someone else appeared at the redhead’s table. Another young woman, quite pretty herself. Olive-skinned, great dark eyes, glossy raven hair, and a fine white blouse paired with a deep purple skirt, clothes so clearly expensive they could not possibly belong to a citizen of the Comintern. The mystery girl had a few books tucked under her arm. She leaned down towards the redhead and smiled.

“Come on, Cheryl,” the brunette sucked her teeth. “It’s a library, keep your voice down.” 

“Go to hell, bloodsucking alien bourgeois,” the redhead, whose name was evidently ‘Cheryl’, spat back. “I bet you’re just _over the moon_ with that news, aren’t you? Savor it while it lasts. Your days are numbered.” 

“I get the opposite impression from _that_ bulletin,” the brunette said, pointing at the now silent radio. “You reds picked a fight with Britain and now _you’re_ losing.” 

“History’s on _our_ side.” Cheryl said. Loudly. "The dialectic is against _you_ and _yours, Veronica Lodge_. Lords of the factories and fields, I say again, your days are _numbered_. One day the Comintern shall free all the world!" More than a few students had given up hope of studying by now and decided instead to observe the two women at their argument. 

The bombast was a bit amusing, Toni had to admit. 

“Right, right. The dialectics and materialism and all that junk,” said the girl who was evidently _Veronica Lodge_. Not much quieter than her opponent. Too loud for a library. “I can’t wait to see how all that theory holds up against bullets and bayonets.”

Cheryl got to her feet. Fists clenched. 

“You damn—”

Toni decided she’d been distracted from her studies on commodity production long enough. She stood and boldly moved to interrupt the two of them. She was shorter than either (though not much shorter than Veronica) but did not allow it to daunt her. 

“Excuse me, ladies—er, comrades.”

Both girls turned to lay their hateful gazes on her.

“And who, pray, might _you_ be?” Cheryl demanded. 

“Toni Topaz, hi.” She waved with a friendliness she certainly did not feel.

Both Cheryl and Veronica responded with short little scoffs. 

“Well, Comrade Topaz,” Cheryl began.

“ _Miss_ Topaz,” Veronica interrupted, making a show of using the antiquated, counterrevolutionary form of address. Cheryl’s scowl deepened. Veronica continued: “not to be _rude_ or anything—I am in _your_ country after all—but we were having a _private_ conversation. Or have you collectivized those, too?”

“No, but we _have_ collectivized libraries,” Toni said, pointedly. “And you two are speaking pretty loudly in one of them. While some of us are trying to study.” 

Veronica rolled her eyes. 

“I’m late, anyhow.”

“For _what_?” Cheryl demanded. “You don’t _do_ anything except occasionally sally out of the embassy to despoil our beauteous soviet land with your foul _haute bourgeois_ air.” 

“I’ve had just about enough of the _soviet land_ for today, Cheryl,” Veronica said. She turned and walked away, pausing to wave coyly. 

Toni watched her leave, remaining next to Cheryl at her seat. Once Veronica was out of sight, she looked down and saw that Cheryl was staring at her, too. Toni thought perhaps she looked a bit endearing in her oversized coat, that dark frown on her full lips. But Toni was always a sucker for a pretty girl, no matter what she was wearing. Cheryl pursed her lips and Toni almost smiled. 

“ _What?”_ Cheryl demanded.

“ _Nothing_ ,” Toni said, just as brusquely. “I was just hoping you two would quiet the hell down and let the rest of us get on with our days. Now that you have, I guess I’m done here.” 

She returned to her seat and to her studies. Toni reopened her notebook and got back to scribbling a few focal points on the matter of commodity fetishism and the value form under the capitalist mode of production. 

Cheryl didn’t return to much of anything. She sat at her table, hands clasped before her, tapping them quietly atop her stack of books. She wouldn’t stop looking at the speaker mounted up in the corner, as if she were waiting for the next news bulletin. And then Toni was distracted from her studies _again_ , because now she was staring at this girl with a mix of awe and annoyance. 

What the hell was _her_ story? 

Obviously, a fanatic, probably a youth leader in the Young Workers’ League, if not a full party member already. Definitely harbored aspirations of joining the Excom, just going by the way she dressed. Obviously not very friendly. Seemed to have some manner of ongoing rivalry with this ‘ _Veronica Lodge_ ’ character (the name seemed vaguely familiar), who by her _own_ manner of dress and speech seemed to have stepped right out of a pre-revolutionary Debutante ball. 

But such a _pretty_ communist zealot this Cheryl was. What lovely hair. Such a bouncy, lively red. She could practically _feel_ it between her fingers. And Toni could simply _tell_ that her fair skin would be wonderfully soft to the touch. 

She knocked herself in the head. Why the hell was she going on such a mental tangent, anyhow? This _Cheryl_ wasn’t very pleasant to say the least. And even if she was, Toni had only learned her name a minute ago. And even if she had _not_ , Toni had not won a scholarship and come to the city to woo fair bolshevik maidens. She was here to pluck her hands out of the dirt and _make_ something of herself. 

And so she would. 

She lowered her head and got back to the books. But she made a mental note to ask Betty if she knew anything about these ‘Cheryl’ and ‘Veronica’ characters. They certainly did not seem like the sort of girls to fly under anyone’s radar.


End file.
